We here in the Pioneer Valley love a good festival. Just this year I’ve seen festivals devoted to asparagus, tomatoes, garlic, or one that just throws it all together to celebrate the harvest season. Our small towns have festivals to celebrate their small-towniness, and you can’t shake a stick in the summer without hitting a music festival or two.
But maybe more than anything else, the film festival has had real staying power. The variety of fests in the Valley, hosted mostly at theaters and colleges, but also at unlikely little venues like bookstores and bars, is one of the great draws of the area for film lovers. And this week they have the chance to get in on the ground floor of a new one.
It all starts on Friday evening, when the inaugural Northampton Film Festival gets underway at the Academy of Music in Northampton. Hosted by Northampton Community Television, who partnered with Forbes Library and the Northampton Arts Council, the festival pulls in film both local and international, as well as a crowdsourced remake of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark that features recreated scenes from over 40 regional teams of filmmakers.
The kickoff on Friday is a 7:30 p.m. screening of Bob and the Trees, writer/director Diego Ongaro’s story about Bob — a 50-plus logger with “a soft spot for golf and gangsta rap” — who finds himself struggling to adjust to a fast-changing economy. Ongaro first met Bob Tarasuk after moving from Paris to rural Sandisfield, a small Berkshire town that at last count numbered around 900 people. A longtime forester and well-known character around the area (one guesses that the forestry/gangsta rap combination is an unusual one), Tarasuk proved an interesting study for Ongaro: a man fully in love with his work, but also fully aware of the dangers and volatility of the industry. The film, set in deep winter in the Berkshires, follows Bob as life starts to stack the deck against him.
Saturday at 2 p.m. brings the Raiders tribute, which the festival is presenting as a free screening (it’s sure to be a draw, though, so get there early for good seats). As the weekend rolls on — the festival doesn’t wrap up until Sunday night — filmgoers can expect an engaging mix of film styles to pass over the Academy’s screen, including a Les Blank documentary about rock and roll legend Leon Russell; a look at the history of the legendary comedy magazine National Lampoon; and a film, In Transit, that lets viewers drop in on the lives of a group of long-distance train travelers. For the full schedule and ticket info, drop by academyofmusictheatre.com
Also this week: A couple of classic comedies make their return to the big screen for some special showings. At the Eastfield 16 in Springfield and the Rave theater in West Springfield, Monty Python and the Holy Grail screens in a “Quote-A-Long” format. Similar to the recent rush of sing-a-long shows for Grease and The Sound of Music, this one instead offers viewers the chance to quip along with their comedy heroes. And at Amherst Cinema, Tim Burton’s classic haunted house story Beetlejuice pops up in the 10 a.m. Saturday slot — a fine, sunny time for a darkly funny film.•
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
